A strange new life

4.2.y

Yamato had just arrived from his three week mission outside the village, when his old friend Kakashi ambushed him. The village had assigned him another mission already. He followed Kakashi to their usual haunt, nodding at the waitress on their way in. Like usual, Kakashi requested a private room, but it wasn’t needed. The bar was empty at this time of the day.

Kakashi handed over a stack of papers. “Here.”

Yamato took the mission information first. Still sealed. He opened it and read the report in full.

His hands didn’t tremble, Yamato was too trained for that, but his grip crumpled the borders of the parchment. Another survivor of Orochimaru’s experiments, another one with mokuton. 

Of course he had heard of Hinata’s kidnapping years before, what Shinobi hadn’t when the Hyuga threatened civil war when it happened? He also heard about the subsequent finding of the girl. Which was quickly suppressed by the communications department. Yamato only learned now about the full details: Orochimaru kidnapped the heir of the Hyuga, experimented on the girl, stole her eyes, left a number of unknown seals behind. Hiashi tried to kill the girl and the Lord Third intervened.

The mission report didn’t explain why Hiashi tried to kill his own daughter.

It was a lot to take in. An S-rank mission issued by Lord Hokage and the council of Elders, dated from a week ago. Yamato glanced at the other stacks of paper piled on the table, it was a series of reports about the girl. 

Orochimaru made contact with Hinata, the Uchiha heir and the jinchuriki. He read the girl’s own report about the encounter. Read the report from team Gai and team ten. Read the ANBU battle site investigation report. The details matched. There were no glaring inconsistencies in the tale. Even the sensor specialists used to listen to the chakra reverberation in the area didn’t find anything different from what was reported.

He picked the next parchment, it was a previously sealed report. 

Hinata was the informant that leaked the information that led to Danzo’s arrest order. She claimed she dreamt about being Orochimaru. In after action reports and intel added to the whole case after the raid there was one small note added by Aobe: information extracted from Danzo’s lair contradicted the current theory. There was no sign of any friction between Danzo and Orochimaru. Danzo even cooperated with Orochimaru on human experiments. It had been dismissed as not important. If Orochimaru wanted to betray Danzo, he wouldn’t alert the paranoid old bastard before the back-stab.

The next papers gave Yamato pause. It was a series of older reports from when the girl was found, about the seals in her body. In the period of time she was unconscious after being found, a number of tests and check ups were performed at the Lord Hokage’s request. The medical staff at the time reported that without knowing the procedure used by Orochimaru, the only recourse they had to remove the seals was to cut the girl open again, which she was estimated to have a 30% chance of survival. Danzo insisted they needed to know what Orochimaru had done. Lord Third refused to risk the girl’s life further. 

The rest of the report was speculation of what the seals did based on information gathered by the notes left behind in the laboratory. It didn’t paint a good picture, and also explained why the council wanted the girl under surveillance. Yamato felt a pang of sympathy for Hinata.

Yamato put the intelligence reports down and picked up the academy reports and Kakashi’s reports as her jounin commander.

There was nothing out of the ordinary about her academy days other than the strange physical results, and the note from one of her teachers that the girl was hiding her strength. Kakashi’s notes were a whole other scenario.

Kakashi classified the girl’s pure body strength between high chunin and low jounin, with a note that she was stronger, faster, and had no control over her body when going all out. The girl was diligent, trained harder than anyone he knew, aside from maybe Maito Gai. Her mental scores were superb, even if the girl had obvious mental blockers and a lack of creativity. She still thought like a civilian, instead of a shinobi. She was good at hand-seals, her taijutsu was medium to low, there was no information about genjutsu. The girl never used it or was never taught them. The last note gave Yamato pause.

Kakashi classified the girl’s chakra control as better than his own. He couldn’t do half the things the girl did with casual ease. Kakashi speculated that the girl’s control matched Tsunade of the Sannin. And how Kakashi purposefully led the girl to believe her control was just “acceptable”.

There were others. Psychoanalysis report after the A-rank mission. Hinata showed no hesitation to kill. Didn’t display any obvious tell she enjoyed the killing. The indoctrination at the academy seemed to have borne outstanding results: mission first, not afraid of risking herself to protect the client, frustrated she couldn’t do more, drive to improve, no cruel behavior or lashing out in anger even in the academy years and a moderate amount of isolation and bullying. Prone to emotional manipulation of those around her and use of sweets and pastries to help with that manipulation. The analysis went on and on. None of it bad, even if strange for a girl her age.

A smile forced itself on Yamato’s face at the last line of Kakashi’s report: Dreams of becoming Konoha’s Black Flash, after the Yondaime Hokage. The report ended with a evaluation score for the girl at academy graduation:

Those were high numbers for a newly promoted genin. The evaluation of course didn’t reflect the whole truth, Yamato knew of shinobi with lower scores that could wipe the floor with others ranked much stronger than them. Kakashi's evaluation of the girl’s strength now made more sense.

Yamato accepted the mission, of course he did. Even if he didn’t have a personal investment in meeting the girl, given their similar circumstances, it had been a direct mission from the Hokage. Yamato would have only refused if it was something he thought he couldn’t do well.

The mission was twofold: The council wanted the girl under strict surveillance. Any suspicious behavior was to be reported immediately. If the girl showed any signs of turning against Konoha, she was to be apprehended, killed if that wasn’t possible. Yamato could see Danzo’s remaining influence on the elders. Even gone, that man caused problems.

The second part was the one issued by the Hokage himself: Yamato was to teach Hinata mokuton. If time allowed, teach her how to seal the jinchuriki chakra, and any other jutsu Yamato deemed necessary. It was clear the man didn’t think the girl an enemy agent, and wanted to foster her growth, the council of elders be damned.

“Where is the girl now?” Yamato asked after reading all the reports.

“Finished already?” Kakashi asked. Yamato nodded. “She requested Gai to help her train for the third phase of the exam.”

That was surprising, why Gai of all people? Why not Kakashi? “Not you?”

Kakashi sighed. There was a bit of melancholy in his gesture. “Hinata is too smart for her own good. She correctly deduced that I would be busy with Sasuke.”

“Is she with Gai then?”

“No, Gai refused.” Kakashi scratched his cheeks, sighed, this time in relief? “He knew about your mission, and I don’t think he was happy with the girl.”

“Why?” 

“You didn’t check the news about the exam?” Kakashi asked and Yamato just shook his head. “Hyuga higher ups might have set Neji to kill or cripple her. He sought her out in the Forest of Death, Hinata drove them off using mokuton.” Yamato nodded, he remembered that part of the report, there was nothing regarding Neji’s motives however. “Like every other arrogant bastard, Hiashi pressed the Hokage to set up Neji to fight her in the second phase preliminaries.”

Nothing out of the ordinary until now. Clan politics was just that, clan politics. It was Lord Hokage’s duty to mediate those.

“It was a disaster.” Kakashi started. “Hinata never gave Neji a chance to fight back. Her speed combined with the ability to use jutsu without hand seals were advantages enough. Even with his Byakugan Neji couldn't keep up. She would have killed him had we not interfered. To make matters even worse, Hinata never actually fought Neji. She had transformed herself into a Kunai, and her shadow clone did all the battling for her. Gai wasn’t happy with the girl after that. The injury was one thing, the blatant humiliation another.”

Nothing in her psychoanalysis hinted at this sort of behavior. Yamato tilted his head. “Why did she do that?” 

Kakashi shrugged. “All I have are guesses.” Yamato just waved on the ‘guess away’ gesture. “Orichimaru put the girl under some sort of pain inducing genjutsu, after he spooked all of them with killing intent alone. Neji displayed killing intent before his battle with Hinata. I don’t know what the clan told him, but Neji clearly sees her as an enemy. Hinata admitted to Gai she had to, quoting her words, make sure Neji understood she was not to be messed with.”

“Shall we meet her then?” Yamato asked. Kakashi nodded and led them away, toward one of the many training grounds.

They found Hinata practicing the basics of taijutsu. She was a mess. Looked like someone put to the grinder and without sleep for weeks. Dressed in black, large strange bracelets on her legs, arms and neck. Black lipstick and paint around her eyes. Was this something young people did nowadays?

After Kakashi’s lame introduction and subsequent retreat came the written message that made no sense.

“Hello Yamato-sensei, Jutsu-chan will be here in a moment, please wait just a bit.” After Yamato read it, Hinata turned around and went back to training.

Yamato wanted to ask questions, but decided it was best to just wait. And sure enough another Hinata walked into the training field. Still dressed in black, but without the black paint and lipstick and no collar or bracelets. The new Hinata looked at Yamato and the other one training. Jogged toward the training girl. Crouched. They had a brief, silent conversation.

“Hi, Yamato-sensei.” The new one spoke. Was this one a clone or the real girl? “Hinata-chan, the original, is busy with physical training. I’m Jutsu-chan, shadow clone. Please take care of me!” The girl’s voice was raspy, like those voices of people with throat injury. 

Yamato just nodded. Somehow he felt old. Really old.

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